Welcome to Genshin Impact, a game that is, in my opinion, all work, no play.

Genshin Impact's primary setting is the world and continent of Teyvat, a continent made up of seven nations governed by seven Archons who all have a unique relationship with their nation. In this game you play as one of two siblings, Aether or Lumine who're ambushed by an Unknown God who splits the two of you apart, starting your journey to find your sibling.

Lemme start by saying that I don't hate this game, I just also don't feel anything particularly special towards it. This game does have things going for it, such as the characters, their interactions and the amazing artwork that the game has. It is very clear that the developers love this game and are trying to craft something genuinely enjoyable, I just have my own personal gripes with this game.

My main and biggest gripe of all being grinding. This is what I mean by all work no play. When you're not doing the story content and the mostly boring and repetitive events, you're grinding for your characters. Grinding materials to level them up, increase their max level, increase their talents, getting them artifacts to boost their stats and levelling up their weapons. To do so, you'll be doing the same repetitive domains over and over again until you have what you need. When you've fought a boss so much in a short amount of time, any impact that boss had is eventually lost completely.

I remember being amazing when I first discovered the Hypostasis or the Regisvines, but the more you grind, these otherwise cool bosses feel more like roadblocks between you and that Level 90 Wolf's Gravestone you've been working on.

It's because of this that the game starts to feel more like a chore than a game, sometimes logging onto the game JUST to grind. It upsets me because I do have an interest in the world and story, I do like the characters, but I cannot tolerate how tedious building characters in this game feels.

I hope years down the line when the game has an actual conclusion and the devs work on more side content to expand the game that it's made more fun or that grinding becomes less of a problem, but honestly, I don't see that happening.

Reviewed on May 18, 2024


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